Sampling gaseous compounds from essential oils evaporation by solid phase microextraction devices

Needle trap samplers (NTS) are packed with 80-100 mesh divinylbenzene (DVB) particles to extract indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This study compared extraction efficiency between an NTS and a commercially available 100 μm polydimethylsiloxane-solid phase microextration (PDMS-SPME) fiber sampler used to sample gaseous products in heated tea tree essential oil in different evaporation modes, which were evaporated respectively by free convection inside a glass evaporation dish at 27 °C, by evaporation diffuser at 60 °C, and by thermal ceramic wicks at 100 °C. The experimental results indicated that the NTS performed better than the SPME fiber samplers and that the NTS primarily adsorbed 5.7 ng ethylbenzene, 5.8 ng m/p-xylenes, 11.1 ng 1,2,3-trimethylbenzene, 12.4 ng 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene and 9.99 ng 1,4-diethylbenzene when thermal ceramic wicks were used to evaporate the tea tree essential oil during a 1-hr evaporation period. The experiment also indicated that the temperature used to heat the essential oils should be as low as possible to minimize irritant VOC by-products. If the evaporation temperature does not exceed 100 °C, the concentrations of main by-products trimethylbenzene and diethylbenzene are much lower than the threshold limit values recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).